Friday, April 1, 2016

Remember Me?




So, I've been absent for a while and just like exercising, once you miss a day and then another and another, you're back to being grotesquely inactive and have gained a thousand pounds.

I was quite literally on the road last week, touring a few possible colleges for Henry. We had an amazing time, driving through the beautiful country-side of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. Henry is a joy -- always cheerful, relaxed and so very funny. I feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to hang with him, nearly 24/7 for a week.

What else is new? Things good that I won't blog about yet and things bad that concern the great job that I've had for the past couple of months. I won't blog about that either but would appreciate words of wisdom, jokes, some anti-corporate America ranting or whatever you hold in your dear minds and hearts.

Here are some pictures from my trip.

My beautiful friend Louise and I at her river house in Virginia

Gorgeous burst of forsythia yellow at the river

East Coast sunset at the river


Henry and I at The Old Well, UNC, Chapel Hill, NC

Henry on his device and me saying "grrrrrrr" in front of my beloved Wilson library
Chapel Hill, NC

Henry looking over Fetzer Field, home of UNC lacrosse

Henry running up stairs of beloved Wilson Library, UNC

Henry posing with the Salisbury University seagull mascot

The spectacularly beautiful, but way too conservative and country clubbish Washington and Lee University
Right after I snapped this picture of my adorable son, he picked up the tab on our fancy dinner. 

Robert E. Lee, rightfully overshadowed by Henry
Road fare, along with filling up the tank of the car for only $20!

Can I tell you that Henry was overwhelmed mainly by the amount of road kill that we saw along the way? I am not certain why there isn't nearly as much road kill in California, but I will admit to you that I actually peed my pants a tiny bit laughing at Henry counting the numbers of carcasses he had seen. Along with the usual squirrels, rodents, cats, dogs and possums, we counted two deer -- one being gutted by a bunch of buzzards and another being heaved into the back of a pick-up truck. Holy southern schmoley.

Here are some pretty road pics:






And here are some photos of our last day when we strolled the campus of UNC, again.

The main quad of UNC, whose trees originally made me fall in love with the school


The beloved Wilson Library Reading Room where I spent many an hour studying and mooning over the boy I loved

I would caption this "where my orgasmic pleasure in the Wilson Library Reading Room was misunderstood by my son" but that sounds inappropriate. His disinterest was entirely appropriate

A William Wadsworth collection in Wilson Library. I lovingly gazed at everything, much to Henry's horror

Seriously, how did thirty years pass because I could have taken this in 1985

A great demonstration against the bullshit law recently passed in North Carolina legislature

Add caption

a moon, worn as if it had been a shell


Don't forget to send me your wisdom and jokes as I'm feeling beyond anxious, like the carpet's been ripped out from my feet (cliches come in handy when you're blown away).

25 comments:

  1. Stay true to your heart and you will be taken care of. It's true. It works. I am living proof. So can you be.

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  2. Beautiful report.
    And here's one of the two jokes I know:
    Two peasant women are pulling up carrots in a muddy field and one of them holds forth a huge, nasty one.
    "Achh!" she says. "This reminds me of my husband, god rest his soul."
    The other woman says, "He was that big?" in astonishment.
    "No!" The other woman spits out. "He was that dirty!"
    Did I make you laugh? I hope so.
    Love you truly.

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  3. OK. I need you to explain something to me.

    Maybe I am wrong in what I know about Robert E. Lee but wasn't he just a bigot and racist that wanted to keep black people as slaves? If I am right in my knowledge (we didn't learn about him at all in Canada) than why is his picture up in that building? From what I know he was the king of hate speech. Shouldn't his pictures be taken down and burned.

    What am I missing? Why is he so loved?

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  4. The Past, Present and Future walk into a bar. It was tense.

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  5. And my other favorite joke of all times…A turtle walks into a bar with a woman slung over his neck. The bartender says to him, "who's that?" The turtle replies, "Oh, her? That's MeShell."

    By the way, your photos in this post are awesome! I have a high school sophomore and I enjoy living vicariously through people who are a couple of years ahead of me in the process!

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  6. The Dalai Lama sits down with a young woman and says, "I got bad news and I got good news." The young woman looks at him. He smiles at her and says, "The bad news is that everything changes, nothing stays the same. The good news is that everything changes, nothing stays the same."

    Sending hugs.

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  7. Fill me in. Come up for a gin and tonic on the patio. Sending love love love.

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  8. God damn that proverbial fucking rug-puller! I'm about to quit my job and become a proverbial fucking farmer equipped with proverbial fucking pitch forks and everything. You're welcome to join me.

    I love that picture of you and your friend Louise. I hope you can channel the apparent calm of that moment as things are roiling around you.

    The forsythia is in bloom here too. I'm surprised it wasn't a bit if not quite a bit sooner down in North Carolina.

    Henry wasn't impressed by the lacrosse pitch?

    Just remember, life goes on. God only wants to make you stronger for having been through this. He never gives you more than you can handle. Hey, things could be worse, right? Everything happens for a reason. This is all part of His plan. When one door closes, another one opens. This too shall pass. Everything's going to be ok.

    <3

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  9. Love these pictures. So many wonderful shots and moments captured. The seagull shot is hilarious. It made me imagine a small child posing like that with the Easter bunny or Santa Claus at the mall haha

    For your anxiety, I feel you. Sometimes I am anxious with something on my mind and other times it is just mental "static;" thoughts wooshing around so fast I merely feel the meaning, not comprehend. It's good to tell someone the anxiety is there, I'm glad you mentioned it but terribly sorry I don't have the magic wand to whisk it away!

    In the meantime, phrases to ponder or repeat with deep, slow breaths to calm your nervous soul... Inhale through the nose and think/say "Feed the love," exhale through the mouth slower than you inhaled and think/say "Starve the fear." I also do this with "surviving" and "is thriving."

    Best of luck. I'll be hoping for you!

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  10. I will never forget the first time I went to Louisiana and saw armadillo roadkill. It totally freaked me out. I was used to raccoons, deer and possum (having grown up in Oregon), but seeing those crazy, prehistoric-looking creatures lying dead on the side of the road over and over again almost made me crash the car. Looks like it was a glorious trip and I'm so glad you and Henry got to hang out together. Sending love and light and some hope for the future - can't wait to see you in May where we will write and eat good food and walk on the beach. Balm for the soul.

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  11. Four year old grandson: what do you call a hot dog who wins the race? A WIENER! 12 times a day. Loudly, in Safeway yesterday. People giggled.

    I feel your pain - but what I didn't know back then (10 years ago) was that my girl and I would become the best of friends. As adults. You'll get to watch him grow into adulthood, and share in his victories and defeats. You'll get to continue to watch from afar and marvel at your glorious son.

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  12. From Mario Joyner: By now, there should be a machine that you just back up for like a second— zap. That should be it. There should be no embarrassing bending over at the doctor's office in this day and age. We're in the age of laser eye surgery. Laser eye surgery! They perform surgery on your eye with a laser. Prostate exam? Finger in the ass. —Wyatt Cenac

    How well I remember leaving my son Andy at school and feeling so utterly lost and alone. I returned home to continue caring for Evie, knowing she'd never go off to college, knowing she'd always need me. Mixed emotions you might share. I don't know how, but somehow (likely after a lot of crying and wine with girlfriends) you will get through this and flourish.

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  13. Dearest darling Elizabeth-

    A grasshopper walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Hey, we have a drink named after you!" And the grasshopper says, " You have a drink named Steve?"

    And that's all I got from Seattle. Anxiety sucks and what I've figured out is to tell it to fuck off. Nicely.

    XXXXXX Beth

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  14. Dearest darling Elizabeth-

    A grasshopper walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Hey, we have a drink named after you!" And the grasshopper says, " You have a drink named Steve?"

    And that's all I got from Seattle. Anxiety sucks and what I've figured out is to tell it to fuck off. Nicely.

    XXXXXX Beth

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  15. I'm so sorry you are weathering tough times. The cartoons linked below just arrived from a friend in Australia. I hope they help. At least momentarily. And thanks for that tour of the good old US which I left nearly forty years ago and last visited ten years ago. It's still stunningly gorgeous (as is your Henry).

    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/297237644129581512/
    http://imgur.com/gallery/CKKBmmn
    https://www.pinterest.com/pin/478014947920988672/

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  16. Life is such a mixed bag. The photos here are lovely and I can only imagine the joy in being with your boy day in day out. I too was with my easy child all last week and it was a balm. I can hardly believe Henry's applying to college already! Or that my own baby will be graduating this year. As for the corporate effed up ness, stay within the day. It's going to be ok, I promise. When this happened to me a while back my cousin the intuitive told me to write on a post it "money comes to me easily and frequently" and put it where I'd see it daily. It doesn't take away anxiety unfortunately but somehow there is always enough. You will be taken care of. The next good thing is on its way. Lovelovelove.

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  17. A little bit of bias as to which school is the best? LOL, good thing it is UNC-CH, no way anyone can go wrong there.

    Just did the same trip you did, or very similar last year but without the lacrosse overlay. URichmond was a hidden gem, IMO. Mine didn't end up going to any of them, but it was a glorious trip.

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  18. The trip looks and sounds wonderful. It's great when we have time with the "other(s)" and enjoy them as the unique humans they are.

    As for the job, I have no words of wisdom, only love that I am sending. May you reside in peace as you wait for a new rug to appear beneath your feet.

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  19. I wish I could say something to soothe your anxiety, but I'm not sure what it woud be. Except I hope things sort themselves out for the better. Your trip with Henry sounds fantastic -- mother/son bonding time!

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  20. We noticed the road kill when we moved to Carolina as well. In Colorado they clean it up off the roads, but in Carolina they just leave it there to rot and disgust us. It's a beautiful place but there is no love lost between Carolina and I.

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  21. Hope Henry found where he wants to go, and sending good thoughts for your job.
    My eldest had a night collision with a deer this weekend, when the *#* beast jumped right in front of his car. He was unhurt, but the car wasn't, and I had to go and pick him up at 2am because the car's headlights had fragmented into nothing, and he was in the middle of the woods in utter darkness. What happened to the deer? I don't know, it was nowhere to be seen, but judging from the damage to the car, it wasn't a happy deer. And I'm not happy either.

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  22. I have a roadkill story from Maine. Similar to Francesca's, but with a twist. My son was on the way home from the Black Friday sales in Freeport via a back road. He called around midnight because his car had been hit by a suicidal deer. The police comes, files a report, calls a tow truck and moves on. While we were waiting on the tow truck to arrive, a car with three attractive young women pull up and ask "Is that your deer?", pointing to the dead deer down the road. When we looked at each other, shrugged and said we guessed so, they asked if we were going to take it home. We said no, help yourself. They drove away and came back with a little pick up truck, loaded it and took it home. Car was classified as totaled by the insurance company, my son was fine, and those girls got their deer meat.
    Hoping for good things for you, hugs from Maine. Sue

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  23. My husband and I were on a road trip to visit his mother - the last time he would ever see her, the first and last time that I would. It was a beautiful sunny day, and our rental car was humming up a curved highway, going uphill, and suddenly a massive hawk flew up from the side of the road, flew in front of the windshield about two feet away (the wingspan nearly eclipsed the entire windshield) and dropped what must have been a 30 pound marmot on the front of the car. The marmot rolled under the car, causing it to nearly jump off the pavement as it thumped over the poor creature. If the marmot was not already dead when it was dropped, it certainly was after its brief career as a skydiver.

    True story.

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